A poll released this week by Zogby International and 463 Communications indicates that 11% of Americans would be okay with implanting a device in their head that allowed them to directly access the Internet.
We're sure the latency is amazing, but is Comcast or AT&T going to charge us skull-chip rental costs and cerebral regulatory recovery fees? Additional strange factoids (did you know 25% of Americans think the Internet could be a substitute for a significant other for some period of time?) are available here.
That's funny, I'll bet most IP users when they were told they have some packet loss due to Near End Cross Talk would look around for "The Great Gazoo" on their shoulder.
The Internet has been cited in lots of divorce case since AOL got revved up.
Actually, a more interesting project involved DARPA using a headset so the wearer could experience anything recorded as their own. The movie Brainstorm was based on that project that supposedly works. The DOD has continued the research into the brain via such connections. Imagine learning a whole college degree in a couple of days? The movie The Matrix had a similar product when people "jacked in".
Wait.. Darpa? DOD? Government messing with the brain?? That's ok, but gene therapy and stem cell research isn't? It's ok to f*ck with life, just not make it better and healthier. Oh.. wait.. that's right.. this government profits off sick people as well as knowing the thoughts of people. :P I'm back now.
And here will be the typical internet installation technician at work:
And you can get your brain chips online: »www.cyborg.com.hr/web-it ··· hp?id=31 Note: this is a web site made to get people thinking about cyborgs and the ethics involved. It isn't real.
No thanks, I'm all for technology but I don't need a direct link to it via my brain. Just what I need Norton Anti Virus Brain Edition.
As far as the internet replacing a significant other, they need lives unless its like a virtual world and feels real to you in which case I can only imagine what sites like that would cost.
Second Life is for those who don't have a first life. Technology is fascinating but there's more to life than that.
Oh, I agree. I was just suggesting a real world item to correlate with the concept that Ricky Smith referred to.
I only looked at the Second Life website once; I thought "oooh, what a great idea... but... if you are spending your life in an online world, then what happens to.... ok, I'm shutting my computer off now..."
Don't forgot the Universal Service Fee to provide a brain proxy for those disadvantaged individuals whose brain cannot except the chip. And once the fund is established, the inevitable reports of misuse such as those with a successful implants misappropriating funds to obtain proxy lap dances.
Don't they bother to think these things through? I think this falls into the sounded like a good idea at the time category. Once you start thinking about what it would take and what the consequences (sorry forgot that in America "it's not my fault") would be. You think cell phone drives are bad, just think how well the jacked in would drive.
I'm sincerely hoping that, by the time we have computer chips able to interface reliably with the human brain, we'll also have cars with AI autopilots.
Not that people wouldn't find a way to screw that up, too....
No way would I want some chip near my brain and neither should anyone else. Most Americans are sheep and slaves to pop culture as it is...but an could you imagine the field day the MegaCorps would have with their "marketing" tactics???? POP-UPs appearing before your retinas...audio wav files playing in your sleep "Buy your Abercrombie/Hollister/Gap/Old Navy Pullover now before Christmas..."
I still need my tinfoil hat to protect me from Nuclear EMP, Cell Phone Towers, My Dinner Cooking in the Microwave Oven, and the Alien Death Rays, if the chip is in my head, the tinfoil would probably cause frequent Internet outages.
Crap, Zogby, please change my answer back to Very Unlikely.
What OS would you use? Can you imagine the field day the spyware companies would have? What if you got turned into a zombie? Suppose someone got a rootkit in your brain? You'd never get it out.